Opération: Preventive excavation
Excavation period: August - September 2008
Excavation directed by: Guillaume DEMEURE
Developer: SR2i

The operation took place on the place called ‘place du Commandant de la Motte Rouge’ in La Rochelle, France, before the construction of a residential block on a 550m² plot of land next to the former St. Nicolas church (built on the remains of a former building and then itself rebuilt in the 17th century). This site was excavated from the 25th August to the 3rd October 2008 by a team of six excavators.
As this account was written before the end of the post-excavation work, all hypotheses proposed, which stem from field observations, are subject to confirmation by further post-excavation analysis. This suburb’s urbanization seems to have begun at the end of the 12th century thanks to marsh drainage works which made new land available for human occupation. The older stratigraphical levels detected seem to date from this period.

This new built-up area was fortified as early as the beginning of the following century. Parts of the walls can still be seen today. Some remains on the north side of the site may form parts of the former church but this hypothesis will need to be confirmed

However, the vast majority of the excavation concerned that of a cemetery, consisting of 37 burials contained within a very limited surface area. Numerous cuts truncating earlier graves and burials placed one on top of the other confirm the intense usage of this plot for burial purposes. On the eastern side, the cemetery is delineated by the walls of the town. Several burials were cut or disturbed during the construction works of what is likely to be a side chapel of St. Nicolas church, probably during the 14th-15th century.
At the end of the 16th century the church was demolished and its material reused to fortify the town threatened by the rest of the country (at that time, La Rochelle was a Protestant town isolated in a mostly Catholic country). The abundant layers of mortar, slates and limestone found most probably date from this demolition. Subsequently, the area was no longer used as a cemetery.
After the siege of La Rochelle in 1628, the town walls were demolished, the moat filled up, and the general height of this area increased. Ceramics found outside the former Walls and among the moat fill also date from the 17th century. At the end of the century, a new church was then built on the spot of the older one.
The area subsequently became a cemetery again, probably during the 18th century (41 burials have been identified) and in the 19th century it was transformed into a garden. The current post-excavation ceramic, geomorphologic and anthropological studies will provide more accurate data on this site history.